


Dress Rehearsal Rag

by StealthKaiju



Series: Music of the Spheres [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ficlet, Ineffable Husbands Week 2019, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 01:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20519999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StealthKaiju/pseuds/StealthKaiju
Summary: ‘Just takes a look at your body now, / There’s nothing much to save (…) That’s right, it’s come to this (…) And wasn’t it a long way down, / Wasn’t it a strange way down?’Dress Rehearsal Rag, by Leonard CohenPrompt: Fall / Plummet / Dive





	Dress Rehearsal Rag

Humans were blessed with short lives, and even shorter memories. Crowley remembered everything – everything good (which wasn’t a great amount) and everything bad (which was a lot more).

He remembered his Fall. How Heaven beneath him had rippled like boiling water, and pulled him under – how he rushed through from the shining whites of Heaven, through a nebula more beautiful than diamonds and gold, to the reds and blues and purples of the atmosphere of a planet barely formed - too fast to catch a breath to scream, but his descent still took an eternity.

Too many questions, they had said. Too curious, too inquisitive, too antagonistic. Always wanting to know the what, the how, the when… but most awful of all, the _why. _To question at all, to not accept as divine and determined the Word.

Was it wrong to question? To want to understand? Yes! Yes, they cried, and so he was cast out.

It took a long time to Fall. There was a pain across his body, as his feathers turned from white to black, almost burnt away. The force of the fall stretched his body, pulling him as a baker would manipulate dough. When he hit the ground he broke through it, like a stone through a window, shards cutting into his already broken and burnt body.

He only finally stopped when he had hit that centre of the Earth, that volcanic centre where the other exiled Angels had ended. Except, oh they were not angels any longer – malformed and broken pieces, angry and despairing.

He tried to shout out his pain and anguish, to somehow expel it out of his body, but no words came; just a hiss, sharp and feral.

No feet to stand and stumble along, no hands to cover his face from the horrors he saw. Just a long, elongated body, that slithered along the ground.

It took time. It took time for them all to remember how to speak, to form their mouths around different sounds. It took time for them to remember how to make limbs – not out of light and music, but out of earth and sullied clay - to stand and walk.

For a while they stayed where they were, at the centre. Yet, they soon heard sounds coming down, little, broken pieces of the Word. Apparently God was creating something new.

There was to be a garden. Beautiful and lush, and protected. And there were to be new creatures – not angels, nor monsters, but something in between.

Who would see what was up there? Who would go and look?

Crowley (though this was many years before he took this name) wanted to look. Wanted to see. Had so many questions.

So he began his ascent.


End file.
